This video of little kids singing praise song to Obama brought some memories of my school days in a socialist paradise.

Once a week (if I remember well) the whole school (joint elementary and middle) would gather and all the kids had to sing the school anthem. After 30 years, i still remember the first verse which roughly translates to this in English:

Forwards, youth of the world
let the brotherly march join us
the dangerous years will pass away
let who is young go with us and fight

Now I can laugh at it, because that socialist paradise died almost 20 years ago. Unfortunately, there are some people in my new country bent on creating their own socialist paradise at our expense.

Communists always knew that they could build lasting strength by indoctrinating the young. They would make sure that both parents had to work (in order to make the ends meet), so they would have free hand to “educate” the kids the way they wanted for 8 hours a day.

I have recently read this review by Ronald Radosh of the book The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia. The book describes the lot of about 10,000 American workers who, during the Great Depression, “… could not help but be tempted by the offers coming from Moscow: Skilled workers were promised paid passage, jobs at high pay, paid vacations, and free medical care. When the Soviet agency Amtorg advertised for help in American papers in 1931, they got over 100,000 applications for slightly over 10,000 advertised jobs. The flood of immigrants included not only steelworkers and auto-assembly-line workers (including Walter and Victor Reuther) but also teachers, clerical workers, dentists, and doctors.

… the American migrants to the Soviet Union learned the bitter truth soon after their arrival. There they found not a worker’s paradise, but near-starvation standards of living, lack of adequate or even slightly decent housing, and little to purchase with the meager funds they were actually paid. When they arrived in the Soviet Union, the Americans were asked to “temporarily” give up their passports. Realizing their mistake and seeking to return to the United States, they were told they were now Soviet citizens subject exclusively to Soviet law, and were not free to come home.”

Ofter reading it, it occurred to me that current situation has some parallels to the tragedy described in “The Forsaken”.

Given the financial mess, some are attracted by Obama’s propaganda the same way people were fooled by the Soviet Propaganda during the Great Depression. They are willing to get on the Obama’s ship on Nov. 4th and sail with their hero to the Workers Paradise. Unfortunately, they will awake in 2009 to something that will not be like the dream they were promised.

… ONE key pioneer of ACORN’s subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott – an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae’s mortgage policies. …

… Two months later, aided by ACORN organizer Sandra Maxwell, Talbott announced plans to conduct demonstrations in the lobbies of area banks that refused to attend an ACORN-sponsored national bank “summit” in New York. She insisted that banks show a commitment to minority lending by lowering their standards on downpayments and underwriting – for example, by overlooking bad credit histories.

By September 1992, The Chicago Tribune was describing Talbott’s program as “affirmative-action lending” and ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities. …

…In those years, he [Obama] also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN’s up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott’s drive against Chicago’s banks.

More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago’s Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation’s board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers – and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift. …

… The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN’s Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. …

… we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues … However … it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. … We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 — we should not eliminate anyone’s fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.

Posted by Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology

I guess the right of the people in China to free speech was not fundamental enough for Google to publicly oppose the Chinese Government’s desire to squash it.

Rush comments on the video from 2004 Congressional Hearing. Here is a “great” quote from Frank Raines: “Because banks don’t — there aren’t any banks who only have multifamily and single-family loans. These assets are so riskless that their capital for holding them should be under 2%.” — Looks like WaMu and Wachovia did take his advice 🙂 … wait, or was it Obama who was taking Raines’ advice?
BTW, here is the official transcript from the hearing shown in the video.

Update: NRCC has released a video about the Democrat’s (willful ?) blindness to the problems at Fannie Mae.

… “Diversity is an integral part of cultivating a welcoming, innovative and dynamic workplace here at WaMu. We are proud to be recognized for the opportunities and benefits we offer to all of our employees, including the specific efforts we have made to engage Hispanics and the GLBT community,” …

Well, at least there is one thing that they earn a 100% score in. Sure this must be some consolation for their shareholders.

Today’s must read is Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools by Stanley Kurtz. It is hard to believe that Ayers was just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood” as Obama claims. Unless of course you believe that Obama listened to Rev. Wright’s sermons for 20 years and there was nothing objectionable in them.

Does pushing radicalism for 4 years (1995-99) count as a “change we can believe in”?

Update: Today Stanley Kurtz raises further questions regarding Obama and Ayers, e.g. “What is the full story of Obama’s elevation to the chairmanship of CAC, and what role did Bill Ayers play in the choice of Obama?”. See more in Founding Brothers. I looks like Obama’s campaign has something to hide. Did Ayers hand-pick Obama to be CAC chairman?

Also of interest:

Obama’s Lost Years — about his time at Columbia (… Fox News contacted some 400 of his classmates and found no one who remembered him …)